TaylorMade Stealth sends golfers flocking to retail

With its distinctive red coloured carbon driver face, TaylorMade’s release of the Stealth lineup has seen golfers everywhere clamouring to experience the product for themselves. Retailers have reported record-breaking early sales, coupled with unheard-of levels of interest in trialling Stealth in the fitting bays. With the product now officially on sale across the UK, we heard from some stockists around the country on what they are seeing in their stores and fitting bays.

TaylorMade’s Brand Director, Paul Hitchenor, explains an integral part of TaylorMade’s strategy. “We aim to bring not just huge excitement, but also a sense of intrigue to the golfing masses, we hope to entice golfers everywhere to go and see for themselves what Stealth is all about. Then with a product line that combines incredible performance with stunning looks and feel, if we can encourage more golfers than ever to choose to visit a stockist for a fitting then we have achieved one of our core goals”.

Ollie Fullerton, Head of Retail at AF Golf Store in Cambridge, says they are seeing golfers itching to get their hands on TaylorMade’s 2022 offering “We have seen incredible demand from customers wanting to place orders for Stealth products, especially the drivers, some before even seeing it in the flesh, which is almost unheard of. The technology, the marketing, the playing staff and the incredible numbers that consumers are seeing during fittings makes this a contender for product of the year already.”

“Immediately after Tiger used the Stealth driver, we started to receive calls regarding the launch dates and when fittings were available. Now having the product we’ve seen an unprecedented amount of Carbonwood driver fittings booked.”
Matt Evans, General Manager, Yes Please Golf

Stealth Performing in Retail & on Tour

Since fitting parts landed retailers have been struck by the performance of the products in the hands of their customers. Stuart Disney from The Mendip Golf Club said, “We’re seeing such a small drop-off in spin and speed on mishits. Distance and dispersion have also been fantastic, I’ve had some amazing results with my customers.” TaylorMade has talked of how their 60 layer carbon face provides better energy transfer for faster ball speeds across the face, and early-season fittings seem to suggest it is doing exactly that. “We’re seeing increases of up to 8mph more ball speed in numerous fittings. Dispersion has been tight too, hitting longer and straighter. What more can our customers ask for?” said Simon Leahy from Ultimate Golf.

It’s not only amateur golfers seeing significant performance gains with Stealth, the same is also being seen out on tour. Current Open Champion, Collin Morikawa saw an immediate leap in driver speed, and commented, “This is the first time where I’ve actually seen that jump. Any time you can get a little more ball speed, get a little more distance, it’s going to be helpful. I haven’t gotten that much stronger, I haven’t gotten that much bigger – but to get that just little extra out of it, it’s going to be beneficial.”

Adam Scott’s recent plaudits for young Danish sensation Nicolai Højgaard were validated recently as the Dane claimed his second DP World Tour title with an impressive driving display using Stealth. Nicolai led the field in both Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee (+2.21) and driving distance (340.75 yards).

“With Stealth, I have had the most enquiries for custom fit appointments ever.”
Joe Fergusson, Towerwood Golf Centre

Adrian Rietveld, TaylorMade’s Senior Tour Rep, worked with Nicolai during pre-season and commented, “It was amazing to see Nicolai’s first shot with his Stealth Plus driver hit 190mph ball speed. While that’s exciting and takes a special type of player, he’s focused on accuracy which we started to dial in during the fit. It’s about the ability to hit shots and turn the driver into a real weapon given the speed and power he has in the tank.”
Driving sell-through

TaylorMade support all Stealth stockists with an extensive free of charge Point-Of-Sale pack to help accelerate sell-out of their stock. Packs include an impact tower with a motion-activated glowing driver face, stacking technology cubes, as well as bespoke graphics catering to each stores merchandising requirements.

TaylorMade say they have needed to react to the demand of new stockists and invested in more of their highly popular illuminated slatwall displays and freestanding club units to cater to an influx of new stockists being opened across the UK. TaylorMade’s UK Sales Manager, Stuart Hubbard, commented on his sales team fielding many requests for new accounts wishing to stock TaylorMade: “From the moment we started presenting Stealth to our customer base at the end of 2021, it felt immediately like many of our customers believed this was going to be a huge year with TaylorMade. Inevitably word gets out amongst the trade, and so yes, we have seen many new account requests coming in in the last three months.”

“We’ve been impressed with the Stealth’s performance, most notable is the increase in ball speed. We’re seeing increases of up to 8mph more ball speed in numerous fittings…And yes, it looks fantastic. We expect Stealth to be our top selling driver of 2022.”
Simon Leahy, Ultimate Golf

TaylorMade’s unwavering commitment to customer service excellence

TaylorMade’s pledge to maintain extremely high service standards in the face of record demand has been backed up with significant operational investments through 2021. Additional Experiential technicians means every UK field sales territory now has a dedicated Experiential expert, able to deliver even more events and increase their service consistency for retailers.

A recent multi-million-pound investment in their HQ custom laboratory increases capacity in 2022 by a further 50% vs 2021 whilst maintaining all quality and lead time metrics. In 2021, TaylorMade surpassed all records of custom clubs built and delivered to UK customers – for in-stock products this was done with an average of 4.3 days order-to-shipment to mainland UK and 98.3% right-first-time metric. “We will deliver another record volume of custom club deliveries and look to surpass our 98.3% first-time-right service metric.” Says Rob Hurst, TaylorMade Operations Director, “we have invested heavily in our infrastructure and our in house expertise to keep ahead of massive demand for TaylorMade custom clubs.”

“We will deliver another record volume of custom club deliveries and look to surpass last year’s 98.3% first-time-right UK service metric.”
Rob Hurst, Operations Director, TaylorMade Golf